Simone Biles cruises to 9th national title and gives Olympic champ Sunisa Lee a boost along the way
Associated PressFORT WORTH, Texas — There used to be a time when Simone Biles would find “beauty in the blindness” ahead of the Olympics, reveling in not knowing what she didn’t know. Watching Lee, who has spent most of the last two years battling kidney issues that have made her weight yo-yo and complicated her training, try to gather herself, Biles left her World Champions Centre teammates and gave Lee the kind of support Biles relied on so heavily back in Japan. “And I didn’t want her to get in her head, so we just went and talked about it.” The two retreated off the floor to talk, with Biles reminding Lee she “could do hard things.” When they returned, Biles stood next to the uneven bars cheering Lee on as she rebounded with a brilliant routine that scored a 14.500 and helped her finish a promising fourth. While she joked that she believes she’s “aging like fine wine,” it’s telling that she saved her biggest smile afterward when talking about the five World Champions Centre teammates — most of them a decade younger — who will join her at Olympic trials in Minneapolis later this month.